Casus Belli
by reciprocity
Summary: Takes place soon after Grave Danger. The team finds itself in the middle of a possible international incident that could lead to a war.
1. Prologue

Well, I know it's been a while since I've written. Real-life intervened, but I'm back. A post-finale fic. If you've read my previous stories, you can consider this a continuation of _Unfinished Business_. Thanks go out to my wonderful betas (Ash and Onyx). Reviews and comments are always welcomed.

There isn't much plot in this chapter – it's more of a prologue to set up the whole story. Also, _Casus Belli_ is a Latin phrase which can be translated to English as an act of war. Consider that a hint as to where this story will go.

Title: Casus Belli  
Chapter: 1 of ?  
Disclaimer: The characters are not mine. Period. Please don't sue me.  
Archiving: Just let me know.

-----------------------------------

_I seem to be spending more and more time here,_ Grissom mused. _It's not something I want to do, but I have to._

The crime lab was always a stressful place to work, but lately it was even more so. Nick's near-death had put everyone on edge and made them even more careful than usual. It was the little things that anyone but Grissom – would have missed. The steps that were just a bit slower, more deliberate. The quick scan of the crime scene – not to find evidence, but to look for any possible threats.

The CSIs were also putting more effort into learning to deal with any threats they did find. Greg was even more reticent about guns than Grissom was. He had put off starting his firearms training – but he had started that the very next day after Nick had been found. It seemed to be that everyone was spending time here in the building's basement, where a small pistol range was located.

Grissom picked up his pistol from the counter, took aim at the paper target downrange, and fired. He did so nine more times. That done, he pressed the button to his right that would return the target back to him.

"Not bad," Sara said, surprising Grissom. He hadn't noticed she was behind him, watching the whole proceedings. "You seem... worried."

Grissom could only sigh. "That's true. But... I've got something to worry about now, don't I?"

Sara knew what he was referring to. She couldn't help but glance at the platinum band on her ring finger. It was an engagement ring. "Yeah, you're right. But I can take care of myself too, you know."

"Call it insurance, Sara. Besides, you can never be taken care of too much, right?"

"Yeah. So... breakfast?"

"I suppose so. Your place or mine?"

"Mine. I _will_ make you appreciate vegetarian cooking."

"Sara, an ancestor of mine was a cattle rancher in the Wild West. It's genetic." That merited a playful slap to the shoulder as the two prepared to head home.

---

It was a magnificent mansion, but it was far from unique. He had many just as grand, if not grander, throughout the country. This one, though, had a particularly grand view of the sea, and that was where the gaze of the Dear Leader pointed.

His father had liked to stay and look out towards the sea, he remembered. Then, across the sea was the closest friend – of sorts – his country had: China. It was different today, he mused. The blood China had shed – including Mao's own son – was no longer as important as the dollars and euros that the world paid for cheaply made trinkets. He could only snort at that fact.

Still, he could not deny the reality that China was a great country, while his own was not. He wanted to change that.

Behind him was a desk with several folders. One was from his nuclear scientists. Another was from his spies – they had been following the activities of those Islamic madmen in London quite closely.

A plan was beginning to form in his mind. _Yes, the world will come to recognize the greatness of the united Democratic People's Republic of Korea._

---

_At least he writes decent memos_, Grissom thought as he read through Ecklie's latest administrative memo. He had another reason to be pleased: for once, Ecklie had given Grissom more or less what he wanted.

Grissom had made it clear that he wanted what he still thought of as his people – Catherine, Nick, and Warrick – back under him. The problem was Catherine was now, technically, Grissom's equal, and she would not easily accept a demotion.

Instead, Grissom had been kicked upstairs: now was a CSI _Senior_ Supervisor. Instead of just being in charge of the graveyard shift, he had that _and_ swing shift as well. Of course, that meant more of the adminstrative rubbish that he detested.

He put the memo aside and opened the next e-mail. It was from his publisher; Grissom had been commissioned to co-write a textbook on forensic entomology. The offer had been extended more than a year ago.

Since then, he had learned a lot about the book publishing industry. It was a process that was bad enough to make making sausage look downright neat. At least once a week, he wondered why he had accepted the offer at all.

It was then that a barely-awake Sara made her entrance. She had changed into shorts and a t-shirt, but she still looked sleepy. Grissom had learned that while she was perfectly capable of pulling successive shifts with little or no rest, when she did go to bed she was a very sound sleeper. Not only that, it usually took her a bit of time – and lots of coffee – to get properly woken up.

Half an hour later, Grissom was looking at Sara with an expression of disbelief. "You're telling me you haven't rode a roller coaster since you were a little kid in San Fransisco?"

She shook her head. "I dunno. I guess I was always too busy, couldn't make the time – and I never really enjoyed it."

"Sara, Sara, Sara... we'll have to fix that," Grissom said. "What do you have on your calendar? Anything important?"

"Well, there's that jewelry store heist, but beyond that-"

"Nothing. The lab can wait – we _don't_ have to be the first in, you know."

"You've got that evil grin on your face, Griss. What are you up to?"

"All you need to know is that we need to go to the New York, New York casino right now."

"Now?"

"Now," Grissom said, with a playful glint in his eyes.

Not more than an hour later, Sara Sidle was, perhaps for the first time, screaming her head off on a roller coaster. She was loving it – and so was Grissom, right beside her, yelling as hard as she was.

---

The massive ship was plowing across the North Pacific. It held several thousand containers, the contents of whom was of little interest to the ship's captain. Most of those had started their voyages from China, Taiwan, Japan, and South Korea. The contents of those were entirely ordinary.

One container, though, was special. It had started its voyage from Pyongyang. There was nothing special about it – but the contents would have set off alarms in many places – ranging from Langley, Virginia all the way to the J. Edgar Hoover Building in Washington, and even across the Atlantic.

Had they known the intended destination, the alarms would have been far worse, perhaps bordering on full-fledged panic. It was headed for Las Vegas, Nevada.

---

To be continued...


	2. Breaking and Entering

Yes, I know I take my sweet time writing. Real-life sucks.

Thanks go out to my wonderful beta Ash.

Title: Casus Belli

Chapter: 2 of ?

Disclaimer: The characters are not mine. Period. Please don't sue me.

Archiving: Just let me know.

-----------------------------------

_Where is everyone?_ Grissom wondered. He had two cases to assign, and it seemed to be that there was not one CSI to be found in the lab.

Finally he found Sara coming out from the garage. "Finally, someone's back here," he said while handing her an assignment slip. "Find Greg – wherever he is – and go out to the Palms. Diplomat got his stuff stolen and his hotel room trashed. Vartann's already at the scene – he'll fill you in once you get there."

"Wait a minute – I just brought in the car from my drive-by. I need to start processing it-"

"Sheriff called, and according to him this case is being followed very closely by the mayor's office. It's not good publicity for Las Vegas, he says."

"That doesn't answer the question. What about my case?"

"Nick should be..." Grissom glanced at his watch, "half an hour away. He had a floater out in Lake Mead. Call him, and hand over the drive-by." With that, Grissom made a move to leave.

"Wait – where are you going? What's going on, anyway?" Sara asked, curious why Grissom was in such a rushed mood.

"It seems to be every loon and felon has chosen tonight to act up. Lab and PD's pretty busy. I've got a DB in a park – call me on my cell if there are any problems."

---

The sun was just over the horizon when Sara and Greg entered the lobby of the Palms.

Vartann was waiting for them, and even he looked a bit frazzled.

"Busy night?" Sara asked.

"One taxi mugging, two bar fights, and a melee on the floor of the Bellagio. What about you?"

"Fourth crime scene, and I just started my double. So what do we have here?"

"Vic was attending a computer convention over at the Venetian. Comes back around midnight, finds his luggage missing and his hotel room a mess."

"What's a diplomat doing at a computer convention?" Greg asked.

"He's the South Korean commercial attache. Probably working with the Korean companies out on the show floor. Name's Kim Jae Kyu. He's over at the security office; you want to talk to him before processing his hotel room?"

"Yeah," Sara said with a nod. "Lead the way, detective."

---

At around the same time, Grissom was arriving at his scene. Brass was the one to greet him. Grissom was surprised to see that the captain was not wearing a suit.

"I never thought I'd see the day when Jim Brass would not be wearing a suit at a crime scene," Grissom said.

"I was supposed to be out fishing in Lake Mead. Dispatch called me in because it seems we're a little busy today."

"There's an understatement. What do we have?"

"Local resident was jogging when he saw the guy asleep on the park bench. Jogger's feeling like a Good Samaritan, wants to give the guy some change. Gets surprised when the victim turns out to be dead."

The assistant coroner was already standing over the body. "Hey David," Grissom said. "Time of death?"

"Liver temp indicates the vic died around midnight. Found an ID, expired California license. Name on it is Michael Kingston, age 48."

Grissom compared the photo on the license with the face of the corpse. The body looked much older, but it was the same person. "Looks much older than 48," he said.

"Street life has a way of aging people," Brass said.

"David, can you roll up his sleeve for us?" Grissom asked. That done, no one was surprised to find needle marks. It was, sadly, an all too common occurrence among the homeless.

It was a grim routine, but one that had to be done nonetheless. Photos of the victim and the surrounding area were taken. The body was carted away, and the few belongings that were still on the bench were placed in an evidence bag. Grissom was on one knee, making a last sweep of the crime scene when he saw something that caught his eye.

Something was reflecting the light from his flashlight. Something metallic. Something that was under the park bench.

However, Grissom knew that didn't make any sense. The bench was made of wood, not metal. Nothing that was there should have caused a reflection.

Grissom went onto his back and pulled himself under the bench. He was surprised by what he found.

There was a metal plate where there should have been only wood. Even more surprising, a small metal box – no larger than Grissom's hand, if that much – was magnetically attached to the plate.

_What in the world is this?_ Grissom asked.

---

"Looks like a rock star stayed here," Greg said.

Sara and Greg were both looking over the trashed hotel room. It was a thorough and complete mess – the bed sheets were on the floor, some pieces of furniture were broken, and clothes were scattered all over.

To Sara's trained eyes, it was more than a messy room. "Someone was looking for something," she said. "Drawers open, shelves exposed – this was a search." She looked around before going on. "Greg, do you see his bags anywhere?"

"Nope."

"So, whatever our suspect was looking for, he didn't find it here, and...he took the bags home? Strange."

"Stalker?"

"Could be... make sure we get all the surveillance footage."

"Got it."

The two then began processing the scene. It took them quite a while – there were many items to photograph and mark as evidence, and lots of surfaces to dust for prints. After more than an hour, they were finally done. Greg grabbed some of the hotel's bellmen and security personnel to help carry the numerous bags of evidence they were carting away, and they were just waiting for Sara to complete her final sweep of the crime scene.

She gave a nod, and soon the blue Denali was heading back to the crime lab.

---

_Where is he?_ Catherine asked herself. She was looking for Grissom, and as usual she was having a hard time finding him. She ended up finding him staring intently at the metal box he had found.

"Earth to Grissom. You still with us?"

"Huh?"

"You've been looking at that metal... thing for the past five minutes. What is it?"

"I don't know. Found it magnetically attached under a park bench."

"Under a park bench? How?"

"Metal plate was glued to the bottom. The plate also had a strong magnet."

"Sounds like somebody went to a lot of trouble to hide the box. What's in it?"

"I don't know – which is why I was about to open it."

"Sure that's a good idea?"

"What do you mean?"

"Well, isn't it likely that the box is booby-trapped?"

Grissom could only bite his lip in frustration. He hadn't considered that.

"Department probably has someone who consults for us. Maybe you can give them a call."

"Good idea. Now, what are you doing here?"

"Paperwork."

Grissom could only grimace at the thought.

---

"I love hotel rooms," Jacqui said. The fingerprint tech's voice was full of sarcasm. "Tons of prints, usually from god-knows-how-many guys with absolutely nothing to do with the case."

"Look on the bright side," Greg replied. "At least it's not some sleazy motel room that has the UV light going crazy."

"Amen to that," she replied.

Sara walked into the room then. "You guys find anything?"

"No," Jacqui said. "Lots of partials, but almost none of them are usable. The ones we have found belong to hotel staff – maids, bellmen – nothing suspicious."

"Maybe it was one of the staff? They have access to the crime scene, and if we did find their prints it wouldn't flag any suspicions," Greg said.

"Well, we're in luck. Each employee card has an individual ID tag – which means that we can tell who went in and at what time they went in."

"What if the card was stolen?"

"All of the Palms' employees are in the system because of the work cards. There's a surveillance camera in the hallway, so we should be able to check the cards with the footage."

"Cool."

"Let me know when you guys find anything, will you, Greg?"

"Got it."

Sara was soon in the AV Lab with Archie. The large LCD screen was currently divided in two – the left half showed the footage from the surveillance camera. The right half showed a schematic of the hotel wing where the diplomat's room was.

"Alright," Sara said, "the diplomat says he left his room at around 9 PM. He came back around 4 AM, so... that gives us a seven-hour long window."

Archie's pressed a few keys, narrowing the data into the entries they were interested in. "Room was only opened twice. Around midnight and at 3 AM."

"Fast forward the footage to those times, Arch."

"You got it," and with a few more keystrokes that was done.

First they saw the footage from around midnight. It was just housekeeping, and it was clear that she had not done it. She was in the room for too short a time to do anything unusual.

"That's great. At least we have our suspect on film," the tech said.

"Cue it," Sara said.

They were rather disappointed at what they found. Whoever had entered the room clearly knew where the camera was: the suspect always had his back to the camera, denying them a chance of identifying him visually.

"Okay, so, since we can't ID him visually, we check the computer records. Whose key card did the use?" Sara wondered.

"Let's see," Archie said. He could only shake his head at what he found. "We don't know."

"What do you mean you don't know?"

"It's a hack built into the system. Almost all security systems have some sort of bypass code – maintenance, law enforcement, that sort of stuff."

"Wait. You can hack a hotel room lock?"

"Sure you can. If it's a computer, there's some sort of hack out for it. Even elevators have hacks."

Sara couldn't hide her disbelief. "Elevators?"

"Sure. On a lot of elevators, if you hit the close button at exactly the same time you choose the floor you're going to, it'll go directly to your floor, without waiting for anyone else."

"Right. So, you're telling me that the security footage and the key card info is useless."

"Yeah."

---

The expert Catherine had suggested finally arrived after breakfast. It took him less than an hour to successfully open the package. Catherine was right – the package _had_ been booby-trapped by a more potent version of magician's flash paper. It wouldn't have caused serious injury, but it would still have been a nasty surprise nonetheless.

"What in the world do we have here?" Catherine wondered.

"Dead drop," Grissom answered. "It's a standard technique for spies. You use some sort hidden or innocent-looking object to transfer something else. In this case, a very small USB thumb drive."

"Whoever did this is one serious player. Not your ordinary street thug," Catherine added.

"Whatever is on this thumb drive will tell us," Grissom said. "Could you drop off the prints I collected for Jacqui to run through AFIS? I need to get this to Archie ASAP."

"Sure."

---

Sara was going over the footage with Archie when Grissom entered the room. "Anything on your case?"

"Well, all we know our suspect isn't dumb," Sara said, explaining to Grissom how their suspect had broken into the room.

"I see. Fingerprints?"

"Greg and I fingerprinted the whole room and the nearby fire escape. He's running them through the computer with Jacqui."

"Okay, Archie, can you take a look at this?" Grissom said as he handed the plastic bag with the USB thumb drive inside to the tech.

"Let's see..." Archie said. "It's blank."

"That's impossible," Grissom said. "Totally blank?"

"As far as I can tell, yeah. Either means it's completely brand new, or this was erased using some sort of heavy-duty algorithm."

"Wait, humor me, Arch," said Sara. "I thought when you erased a file on a computer, it's totally erased."

"Not really. Think of your hard drive as a bunch of papers inside a filing cabinet. Think of each 'file' as papers inside a folder. The bigger the file, the more pieces of paper in the folder. When you delete a file, what most computers will do is just remove the folder, but keep the papers inside the cabinet."

"But that's not the case here," Sara said.

"Right. Someone actually took the time to overwrite whatever data was on this drive."

"How difficult is that to do?" Grissom asked.

"Not very. You can download programs off the Internet to do just that, and they'll comply with all the Department of Defense specifications for data destruction."

Grissom could only sigh in annoyance. "Looks like you're not the only one dealing with a clever suspect tonight."

"We interviewed the diplomat a bit, but that was when we assumed it was simple break-in and robbery," Sara said. "I think we need to talk to him soon."

Brass entered the room, having heard Sara's statement about interviewing the diplomat. "Too late for that," he said.

"What?" Grissom asked.

"Kim Jae Kyu dropped dead in the Palms' main restaurant an hour ago. Sara's B&E and your mysterious box just became a murder."

Grissom and Sara could only share a look of disbelief.

---

To be continued...


End file.
